Overland to ship multi-protocol SAN array

Posted on October 26, 2010 By Dave Simpson

October 26, 2010 – Overland Storage plans to begin shipping the SnapSAN S1000 disk array next month. The key differentiating feature is that users and integrators will be able to configure the S1000 with a range of host interfaces, including 1GbE iSCSI, 10GbE iSCSI, 6Gbps SAS or 4Gbps Fibre Channel, with 8Gbps Fibre Channel connections due later this year. However, different interfaces cannot be mixed in the same enclosure.

In the case of 1GbE, there are two ports per controller, or four ports in a dual-controller configuration. With all other external interfaces there are two ports per controller, or four per array.

On the back end, users can configure the SnapSAN S1000 with 6Gbps SAS or 3Gbps SATA drives, including “Green SATA” drives, with up to 12 drives per 2U array and a maximum capacity of 24TB using 2TB SATA drives. Users can attach up to four 2U expansion units to extend capacity to 120TB.

Pricing starts at $6,495 for a drive-less enclosure. A 4TB, single-controller configuration with 1GbE iSCSI connections is priced at $6,895. SnapDisk E1000 expansion units start at $4,195 without drives.

“Green” features include disk spin-down, or variable-speed drives, and temperature monitoring and automatic fan adjustment.

Joe Disher, Overland’s product marketing manager, notes that performance figures are preliminary, but the company is citing maximum performance numbers of 200,000 I/Os per second (IOPS) and throughput of 900MBps for 1GbE iSCSI; 220,000 IOPS and 1,300MBps for 10GbE iSCSI; 100,000 IOPS and 1,500MBps for 4Gbps Fibre Channel; and 70,000 IOPS and 3,000MBps for 6Gbps SAS configurations.

Other features of Overland’s SnapSAN S1000 include support for all RAID levels, online RAID migration and volume expansion, snapshots, redundant components and support for Microsoft MPIO and VSS.

Separately, Overland has acquired MaxiScale, a startup specializing in clustered, scale-out NAS and global namespace technology. Overland will apply MaxiScale’s technology to its SnapServer line of NAS appliances. MaxiScale had raised about $25 million in funding.